CANCELLED: ProgStage 2013: Israeli Progressive Rock Festival (Oct/Nov)

This post is re-blogged from http://mitkadem.wordpress.com/2013/09/10/progstage-2013-israeli-progressive-rock-festival-11-12-oct/

CANCELLED: ProgStage 2013: Israeli Progressive Rock Festival (Oct/Nov)

Posted on September 10, 2013by mitkadem

*This event has been cancelled by its promoters*

Three international bands [NOT] will fly to Israel in October 2013, to attend the 2nd Progstage festival. The place: Dugal Beach, on the Kinneret shore (Sea of Galilee). The production cancelled the event three days before the date. Possible reasons: low ticket sales and the closing of Dugal beach (due to 0season’s end). Here are the bands that will NOT attend:

• Circus Maximus (Norway), promoting their third album from 2012, “Nine”
• Haken (UK), which have just released “The Mountain”, also their 3rd release
• Bumblefoot (USA), aka Ron Thal – Guns ‘n Roses guitarist, among other mayhems

All three bands were supposed to perform on the eve of October 11th (Friday night), with local crowds camping out on the beach with tents. On the next day, all artists were welcome to use the waterpark facilites or just enjoy the Sea of Galilee, just like Jesus did 

A bunch of local Israeli progressive bands were also supposed to  attend (this will not happen, as well):

• Behind The Sun
• Eatliz
• Yossi Sassi
• Key of The Moment
• Desert
• Distorted Harmony
• No Reflection
• Love Beach Girls Choir

Progstage 2012 was a big financial loss, although it was a successful event for the tickets buyers who enjoyed a real bargain. Four international bands were invited (Pain of Salvation; The Flower Kings; Andromeda; Osada Da Vida), with about 13 local bands performing. Many prog-heads enjoyed the free atmosphere at the beach, but not enough people bought tickets to make the production break even.

The 2013 event seems (well, at least, so it seemed at the time) much more realistic, with fewer bands and smaller names – but in the end – it will not happen in 2013, and probably not in 2014, as well.

The Progstage production team has said that a new event will be scheduled in November, probably at “Reading 3″ club in Tel Aviv. It was scheduled to Nov 30th, but was cancelled again in Nov 17th. Again, low ticket sales were the reason for the 2nd cancellation.

[this post has been edited on Oct. 10, 2013 and again on Nov 19th]